Trump's Threats - Military Against Baltimore and the Escalation of a Presidency

Yesterday we had already reported that we are on our way to Baltimore - because of the upcoming court hearing in the case of Kilmar Garcia. Today we are experiencing how Donald Trump is targeting exactly this city and openly threatening to deploy the National Guard. We are therefore going to the court to report on the further course of the proceedings, and suddenly find ourselves in the midst of a political power play that involves soldiers, tanks and martial threats. A journey into the justice system that could end like a frontline report - LOL.

Trump has once again intensified his rhetoric and is threatening to deploy the military in more American cities. This time it hit Baltimore - and thus the Democratic governor of Maryland, Wes Moore. What began as an invitation to a joint city tour ended in a verbal clash that ruthlessly exposes the political front lines of the United States. Moore had called on Trump to get to know the reality on the ground instead of polemicizing against Baltimore from afar. "The president lives in blissful ignorance," Moore said Sunday on the CBS program Face the Nation. While he himself was talking about the concerns of the people, Trump was wasting his time talking about him. Trump's response came, as so often, via Truth Social - in the tone that has long been his trademark: mocking, aggressive, condescending. Moore had invited him "in a rather nasty and provocative tone," the president wrote, and bluntly threatened to deploy the National Guard in Baltimore.

The scene feels like déjà vu. Just a few weeks ago, Trump deployed soldiers in Los Angeles against the will of California Governor Gavin Newsom. Washington, D.C., has been under a de facto siege for weeks by National Guard and federal police. And now the Pentagon is reportedly preparing an operation in Chicago, possibly even involving active troops. New York is also on Trump's list, according to his own words. It is no coincidence that these are always Democratic-run cities whose mayors and governors are African American or elected by majority-Black populations. Baltimore, Washington, New York - and now Chicago - share not only the party affiliation of their leadership, but also a demographic reality that Trump repeatedly disparages with derogatory words. He describes these metropolises as "dangerous" and "dirty," language that critics such as civil rights activist Al Sharpton unequivocally brand as racist. "This is not about fighting crime, this is about profiling Black people," Sharpton said Sunday at an event at Howard University. "This is laced with bigotry, this is racism. Not one white mayor has been targeted."

Resistance in the affected states is strong. Governor JB Pritzker reacted sharply: There is no emergency that would justify the deployment of troops in Chicago. Trump is trying to manufacture a crisis, to instrumentalize soldiers and to abuse his power in order to distract from the damage he is inflicting on families. "We will continue to follow the law, defend the sovereignty of our state and protect the people of Illinois," Pritzker wrote on X. But Trump shows no inclination to relent. His calculation is as transparent as it is dangerous: By covering liberal big cities with military threats, he stokes the resentments of his base, distracts from economic and social upheavals, and presents himself as the only one who can restore order. That he thereby undermines democratic principles, ignores the separation of powers and mocks federalism has long been part of his strategy.

Baltimore thus stands as an exemplar for a larger drama: the attempt of a president to use state power not to defend civil rights, but to discipline political opponents. It is a game with fire that civil rights activists consider an attack on the Constitution and that further destabilizes the already fragile balance between Washington and the states. What is really behind Trump's martial rhetoric is a dangerous pattern: the systematic linking of crime, skin color and party affiliation, condensed into threats against Black mayors, against Democratic-run cities and against those population groups that have suffered from structural disadvantage for decades. In this logic the National Guard is no longer deployed for protection, but as a demonstration of power.

Trump threatens to turn the map of the United States into a stage for his fantasies of power - and Baltimore is only the next scene. But the real message is unmistakable: Wherever Trump senses power, there is no respect for boundaries, neither legal nor moral. Trump stages himself as a modern Nero, brandishing the power of the state like a torch - but history has shown that Nero in the end did not experience triumph, but downfall.

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